Cupid's Light Read online

  The other was an attractive female Matt judged to be his own age, maybe a few years younger. She had dark curly hair pulled into a clip behind her head and wore just enough makeup to emphasize her features. She had on a pair of yoga pants, running shoes, and a fleece V-neck shirt. Nick walked over to greet her and, his curiosity piqued, Matt followed.

  “Hi, I’m Nick Tigre, Jonas’s dad. Are you Courtney’s mom?” he asked, indicating the girl who now stood awkwardly next to Jonas. Both kids were red in the face, and Jack hovered behind his older brother, making snide comments, which only further embarrassed the two lovesick teens.

  The woman laughed as she shook Nick’s hand. “Oh God, no. I was fourteen when she was born. Hadn’t even yet discovered boys by that point in my life.” Her gaze raked over Matt, making it clear she had most certainly discovered boys by this point in her life.

  “I’m her aunt. Shay Zebree. Her dad, Steve, is my older brother. Pleased to meet you.”

  Matt offered his hand to shake. “Matt Tigre. Jonas’s uncle,” he said with a grin. An image of Adora with her pink hair and fluttering wings popped into his head, and he pushed it away. She wasn’t here to throw around her Cupid dust or whatever the hell she did to encourage couples to mate, so he was safe to flirt with the good-looking female shifter.

  “You don’t look familiar. Visiting from another pack?” he asked.

  Shay nodded. “I live on the west side of the state. It’s a lot more rural over there, so when my brother and sister-in-law decided to mate, he moved over here and joined her pack, so he could be closer to the city. Luckily, he doesn’t have a thing against humans, like so many of our kind do. Makes it easier to accept the fact that his pack master mated to one.”

  Remembering the new job Josh had recently tasked him with, Matt said, “I take it you feel the same as your brother?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other. As long as they don’t bother me, I won’t bother them.”

  Matt decided he liked her. Thoughts of Adora popped into his head again, which annoyed him. Just because he liked a girl did not mean he had to consider her as mate material. He ground his teeth and forced the image away.

  “How long are you visiting?” he asked.

  “Through the weekend,” Shay responded. “Courtney’s a cheerleader and there’s a competition tomorrow. I promised I’d go.”

  “What about tonight? Are you going to the pack master’s party?”

  Shay gave him a speculative look. He recognized the look.

  “Steve mentioned it. He said the pack master probably wouldn’t care if I tagged along.”

  “He won’t,” Matt assured her. “He’s our cousin,” he added.

  The heat in her eyes ratcheted up a few notches, and Matt’s hopes faded almost instantly. He recognized the look of a status seeker. It had been the reason he’d suspected Henry’s mom tried to hook him by claiming Henry was his pup. He hadn’t been remotely in line to become pack master at the time, but sometimes that didn’t matter. Just the fact that he was related to someone with a high status within the pack was good enough for some.

  “I’m looking forward to it,” he heard Shay say, but he’d already dialed out of the conversation, and turned away to demonstrate to his youngest nephew how to properly shoot a bow and arrow, in an effort to distract him from the awkward flirtation going on between Jonas and Courtney. Jack was having far too much fun at his brother’s expense.

  Contrary to what Jonas had said earlier, Matt could focus on a hobby for an extended period of time, and shooting with a bow and arrow was one of those hobbies. He was significantly better at it than his brother, and in no time at all, Jack was, too. Not that Jonas really cared at the moment. He was too busy sitting on the swing hanging from a nearby tree, chatting animatedly with Courtney, who stared at him as if she were intent upon absorbing every word. Their faces had finally faded back to a more normal color.

  A short time later, after he bade everyone good-bye and headed out to his truck, he felt a disturbance in the air that told him he was not alone. He sensed movement next to him and turned, wrapping his hand around the person’s neck. His mind registered first that he had a stranglehold on a female, and then he realized which female.

  “Adora? Why the hell did you sneak up on me like—oh shit!”

  Her face turned green and she heaved once, twice, and then—

  “Not my truck again!”

  Adora staggered backward, swiping the back of her hand across her mouth.

  “Goddamn it,” Matt muttered as he paced around the truck, wrenched open the passenger side door and grabbed a handful of napkins from the glove box. Handing her the napkins, he asked, “What is with you and the puking?”

  She wiped her mouth with the napkins and said, “I told you, it’s in my genetic makeup. All Cupids have a hard time dealing with any sort of act of violence. One of my failed assignments was this human girl who was living with an abusive boyfriend. I’d figured out that she was really meant to be with this other guy—this guy she worked with who was one of the sweetest, kindest individuals I’ve ever met. Every time her boyfriend took a swing at her, I ended up puking on his shoes. When he finally threatened to take a swing at me, my Assigner stepped in and pulled me off the assignment.”

  “Did the girl end up staying with the abusive loser?”

  She offered a watery smile. “No, actually. I found out later that his threatening me—someone she’d considered a friend—was the last straw. She finally left him and eventually ended up marrying the co-worker. Last I heard, they were due to have a baby and were blissfully happy.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a failure to me.”

  “That’s what my Assigner says, too,” she said, her voice laced with dismay. “The problem is, we’re supposed to stick with our assignments until the task is complete. Until they truly find love. She didn’t figure out she was in love with the co-worker until after I was pulled from the assignment.”

  He recalled what she’d told him about losing her wings if she failed at finding him love. “Do you lose everything if you don’t hook me up with someone? Your magic, too?”

  “I don’t think so. As I understand it, I’d retain everything except my wings.”

  And therefore, her ability to return to her home, Cupid’s Plain. She looked so utterly miserable at the prospect, Matt had an unusual urge to offer a sympathetic hug. And he was sympathetic, truly. While he had no desire to take a mate, neither did he want her to lose her family.

  “There isn’t any kind of work-around?”

  Adora glanced at the mess she’d made, and with a wave of her hand, the puke disappeared, leaving his truck sparkling clean. “I suppose I could just keep puking on your truck. Maybe my Assigner would swoop down and pull me off this assignment because of the threat of you doing violence over it.”

  “I love my truck,” Matt admitted. “But I doubt very much I would develop an urge to beat on you if you keep puking on it. Especially now that I know you can clean it up with a swipe of your hand. Can you take away the smell from the inside, too?” he asked hopefully.

  “Oh dear! I didn’t even think about that. Of course—I’m so sorry. You should have said something sooner.” She opened the door and quickly and efficiently performed her magic mojo to pull the smell out of the interior.

  “It wasn’t that bad,” he lied.

  Chapter 4

  HE drove her back to Josh and Rachel’s house. On the way, Adora inquired about Shay.

  “You were interested at first,” she pointed out. “Admit it.”

  Of course he didn’t. But she knew better. Cupid Level One, in danger of losing her wings or not, Adora had an inborn sense about these things.

  “She’s definitely interested in you. What happened?”

  “You were spying on me?”

  “Observing,” she corrected.

  “Do you always observe without tell
ing people you’re there?”

  “No, but my assignments aren’t usually so opposed to having me around. Normally, I become quite friendly with them, and they actually like hanging out with me.”

  “I like hanging out with you,” he insisted. “I’m just not interested in taking a mate. So if you wanna hang out without holding that over my head, I’m game.”

  “That really does defeat the purpose, you know,” Adora replied, even though the idea of simply hanging out with Matt, with no other expectations, had a curiously intriguing appeal.

  “Here’s a question. If your assignments are guys, how do you hook them up with other women if you’re always around? I mean, you’re pretty hot, so I would imagine most women wouldn’t want you to be hanging out with their potential mate.”

  She preened. He thought she was hot. An image of him lying in bed, naked and half-asleep, popped into her head. Speaking of hot.

  “It depends on the situation,” she replied. “Not all women are the jealous type.”

  “Shifter women are.”

  “Which means it was a good thing I didn’t make my presence known at your brother’s house,” she shot back.

  Matt made a face. “Doesn’t matter. Shay’s not my type.”

  “What is your type?”

  “I don’t know that I have a specific type. I just know what I don’t like.”

  “And what was it about her you didn’t like?”

  “As soon as she found out I was first cousin to the pack master, all she saw was my status. She probably would have stripped naked right there in front of my nephews and brother if she thought she had half a chance of mating with me.”

  “Bit of a pessimistic view of your species, don’t you think?”

  “More like pragmatic. Trust me. I know the signs.”

  The circle drive in front of Josh’s home was blocked by a white truck inscribed with the logo of the hotel Josh owned. He had apparently enlisted the hotel to cater the event he had planned for this evening.

  Adora frowned, recalling the scene she’d watched from her perch, fluttering about the highest branches of the nearest tree. “I don’t think it was quite that bad. You should give her a chance.”

  “No,” Matt said flatly. He parked behind the catering vehicle and climbed out of the truck.

  Inside, the house was a flurry of activity. Hotel staff prepped colorful arrays of dishes that were heavy on meat ingredients. Adora noted appetizers made with duck and venison and beef, as well as pork and chicken and enough bacon to cause a heart attack in mere humans. Shifters, however, had different metabolisms, and their bodies actually needed the meat.

  Bartenders stacked glasses and lined up bottles of top shelf liquor on makeshift bars set up in various rooms on the main level. Florists rushed from horizontal surface to horizontal surface, adding vases filled with bright, fresh-cut fall flowers. A small pack of teenaged shifters were being instructed to move furniture around to accommodate what was expected to be quite the crush.

  Adora followed Matt through the barely controlled chaos, up a wide staircase with a shining wooden bannister, through a maze of halls, until they reached the pack master’s private suite. Several people were gathered there. Rachel, of course, as well as shifters, Lightbearers, and an infant who was a combination of the two. As soon as they walked into the sitting room, Josh stepped up and offered them each a drink, then began the introductions.

  “Matt, you remember Tanner Lyons, his mate Olivia, and their pup, Austin?”

  Matt shook hands with a shifter who wore his long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. As with most shifters, he had thick facial hair, although it was neatly trimmed. A black V-neck sweater and a pair of black slacks complimented a smooth, powerful image that was gently negated by the dark-haired, blue-eyed baby bouncing in his hands and drooling onto his arm.

  Tanner’s mate stood from where she had been sitting on a small sofa next to Rachel and walked over to shake hands with Matt and Adora. She was equally as elegant as Tanner, but as opposite in coloring as one could get, with white blond hair and pale, pale eyes. Her skin was palest alabaster, a stark contrast to Tanner’s olive, perpetually tanned skin. She wore a cream-colored velvet dress with long sleeves and a scooped neck that showed off the top swell of her breasts.

  An older male Lightbearer with hair the same color as Olivia’s stood from where he had been seated in an overstuffed armchair, and Josh introduced him as the King of the Lightbearers.

  “I’m Sander Bennett,” he said, shaking first Adora’s hand and then Matt’s. “Adoring grandfather and occasional figurehead.”

  “You’re more than a figurehead, Father,” Olivia protested, but to Adora, it sounded weak, as though she didn’t believe her own words.

  “Yes, well, Matt, why don’t you introduce your lovely companion,” the king suggested. “I think I know what she is, although I’ve never met one in person before.”

  Josh beat him to the punch. “This is Adora Adone, Matt’s own personal Cupid.”

  Sander nodded, a self-satisfied look on his face. “As I suspected.”

  “We’ve never had reason to visit your coterie, as the Lightbearers have always had arranged unions,” Adora said.

  The king glanced at his daughter. “Yes, well, I’m not so sure that will change anytime soon. We’ve eliminated arranged unions, but it seems these shifters keep coming along, convincing my Lightbearers to fall in love with them.”

  He didn’t sound terribly unhappy about his observation. Adora looked at Matt through her lashes. Perhaps she needed to arrange for a visit to the coterie. Maybe he had been right when he suggested his mate might not be a shifter.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, clearly guessing what she had been thinking.

  “What’s a Cupid?” Tanner asked, eyeing her with undisguised curiosity.

  Was it her imagination, or had Matt moved closer? When his arm brushed hers, she gave a start as if she’d been shocked by a jolt of electricity. Tanner arched his eyebrows but otherwise did not acknowledge the action.

  “Matchmakers,” Sander explained. “Totally benign creatures, so they can travel freely from world to world, even if the portal or passageway has been blocked by magic. Which you would know if you read that book on magical species I loaned you.”

  Tanner apparently chose to ignore the dig. “You mean like pups with wings that go around shooting bows and arrows? Do you have wings?”

  Adora’s lips quirked. It seemed practically everyone had the same misconception about Cupids. “We don’t start matchmaking until we’ve completed five years of Cupid School, and most do not start Cupid School until they are fifteen. And we do not use bows and arrows anymore. Doesn’t exactly go along with our benign personalities, even if the arrows are tipped with love potions.”

  “And yes, she has wings,” Matt added.

  “Oh, can we see them?” Sander asked, clapping his hands like an eager child.

  Adora was about to indulge him, when Matt placed his hand on her arm and said, “She’s not a goddamn specimen in a petri dish.”

  Adora patted his hand and gave him an appreciative smile. “It’s really quite all right, Matt. I get this a lot. And I don’t mind in the least.”

  To avoid further argument, she quickly sprouted her wings and fluttered them, drawing everyone’s attention, including Matt’s. It was flattering how much he appreciated her wings. Hopefully, that appreciation would help him come to the conclusion that he needed to take a mate. Otherwise, she would lose them forever.

  “Josh said you’re Matt’s personal Cupid. What does that mean?” Tanner asked.

  “It means I’ve been sent to help him find his mate.”

  Tanner chuckled and slapped Matt on the back. “Congrats, bro.”

  “Don’t congratulate me. I’m not taking a mate.” Matt all but spat the words and then swallowed the contents of the drink in his hand
.

  His stubbornness concerned Adora, and she wished she had his dossier, so she could learn what from his past had caused it. Her Assigner had insisted this would be an easy assignment, yet thus far, Matt had shown no signs of relaxing his determination to remain single.

  Rachel distracted her from these thoughts by grabbing her arm and tugging her toward a nearby sofa. “Adora and I only met yesterday, yet I feel as though we’ve been friends forever,” she said, speaking to Olivia, who had followed them. She sat on Rachel’s other side and gave Adora another speculative look.

  “I’m so glad Rachel has a friend right now. I understand the pack has not been overly welcoming,” Olivia said.

  Rachel frowned and Adora clamored to find a subject that would not upset her new friend. “What about the coterie?” she asked. “Have the Lightbearers accepted the shifters who now live there?”

  Olivia nodded. “For the most part, yes, although I won’t lie, it’s been a struggle. But as we were on the brink of bankruptcy when Tanner came along and were about to have to abandon the coterie to seek our way in the human world, I’d say having shifters around has significantly improved our lot in life.”

  Rachel sighed. “If only I had something like that to bring to the table. All I do is somehow cause all the kids—er, pups—to like me. I even offered to start a shifter daycare, but only a few would even consider leaving their kids alone with me. The adults all still hate the fact that I’m part of their pack.”

  “Not all of them,” Adora reassured her.

  Thankfully, Olivia changed the subject. “Adora, I’ve read about Cupids, but like my father, I’ve never seen one until now. Are you really assigned matchmakers?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what we are.”

  “And they really did use bows and arrows, once upon a time,” Rachel added, her melancholy replaced with amusement. “Tell her that story you told me last night.”

  “Which one?”

  “Hold that thought,” Olivia said as she held out her arms. Tanner walked over with a squirming, fussy pup who was desperately trying to get out of his grasp.